


Turn and face the strange

by Project0506



Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, F/F, F/M, Gen, Genderbending, Genderswap, kind of cracky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 07:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2380346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I guess we know why it's called 'Spring of the Drowned MILF'?"</p><p>The team experiences ... changes.  This is how they react.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Colonel leads the charge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SniperinaJumper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SniperinaJumper/gifts).



What Jake Jensen thinks goes something like: This is a really bad time for my latent daddy issues to become latent mommy issues.  What he says is, "I guess we know why it's called 'Spring of the Drowned MILF'?"

 

The chorus of 'shut up, Jensen's is pretty much expected and standard and, at this point, easily ignored.  Especially when there are other things to think about.  Things like "Of  _course_  the Colonel isn't wearing a bra."  And, "More than a handful is  _definitely not too much_!"  Jensen also has to think about dodging.  Apparently a sudden shift in center of mass isn't enough to appreciably affect Clay's aim.

 

* * *

 

Pooch won't let Clay in the van.  "Bio-hazard sir," he argues, eyes fastened securely on Clay's left eyebrow and nowhere else.  Because Jolene would  _know_. "Them's the regs man.  The Pooch don't make the rules." Also The Pooch don't wanna be sprouting no titties cuz his CO brought a contact toxin into his ride.  "Be more'n happy to drive you back just as soon as you... hose down."

 

'Don't freak out,' he thinks.  'You're a soldier.  Don't-'

 

" _No touching!_ " he shrieks manfully ( _manfully_  shrieks) and dances out of arms reach.

 

* * *

 

Cougar has never before been so grateful for his hat brim.  Because  _Jesu Cristo_.   _Legs!_  


 

Clay looks taller.  It's a trick of perspective; he's not actually but with a shortened torso and... and  _legs,_ long, long, well muscled, well defined, well tapered legs it kind of gives that illusion.

 

Clay crosses his legs and Cougar's hat tips forward.  (His legs?  Her legs?  En Espanol they are both 'su' and everything would be less complicated.  Except that en Espanol Cougar's thoughts are trapped in an endless cycle of 'Dios te salve, Maria').  Clay crosses his legs, reclines in the front seat and bitches about the heat.  Cougar hides his eyes and doesn't look away. 

 

This, he thinks, is going to be a distraction.

 

* * *

 

Roque don't care about what's going on between Clay's legs.  He won't, and he'll repeat that until it's true.  He don't give two shits about Clay's girly-nee-manly bits.  All he cares about is the team, the status quo and the mission.  They've fucked up the last too many times to count but they've never, ever screwed with the first two.  All Roque wants to know is what this'll change.

 

He gets his answer three nights later in a seedy little dive that acts like it ain't ever seen a black man and his pet white boy before.  When Clay leans back and locks eyes with the hottest, craziest-looking bitch in the joint; when he smiles that smile of dark whiskey promise and lady-killer dimples; when even digging a four-inch shiv outta Clay's leg don't dim the grin, Roque knows.

 

* * *

 

This don't change a goddamn thing.


	2. Cougar is not a mahou shoujo

“Tenemos un problema,” snaps Cougar, fresh from a suddenly-interrupted shower.  He is wrapped in a towel, army issue, and small and thin enough that said problem is immediately and abundantly apparent.  The reactions around the kitchen were as follows.

“Jesus H. Christ.”  Roque.

“Not again.”  Clay.

“You stay _over there_!”  Pooch, and no matter what he says, the words are a distinctly high-pitched squeal.

“Nope,” says Jensen simply, and that brings everyone up short.

“Nope?” prompts Clay when it becomes obvious the tech has no intention of continuing.

“Nope,” Jensen agrees and stares calmly out the window.  There’s the skeletal remains of a playground out there, half eaten up by plants.  Jensen ponders this and sips his sludge-coffee.  “I told myself I won’t ever have this dream while I’m in the same room as my CO.”

Sometimes it is hard to explain how Jensen survived as long as he has.

 

* * *

 

 

Cougar isn’t any chattier as a woman.  He’s actually _less_ , though this could simply be chalked up to how pissed he is.  His balance is all wrong, shooting prone is going to a _nightmare_ he knows it, army t-shirts are hell on brand new nipples and, according to certain teammates, his ‘I am darkness, I am the night’ prowl is apparently now a ‘Hellooooo nurse!’ sway.

He has to remind himself, repeatedly, that Jensen is a teammate and the US Army frowns on the kind of things he’d like to do to him.  _Not like that_!

The worst, the absolute worst, is that Clay is four cup sizes larger.

“Those are definitely A’s man,” Pooch says from beyond what he has instituted as the Infection Zone.  (Because femininity is apparently contagious and Clay is Patient Zero and just _how is this Cougar’s life?_ Why didn’t he become a CPA like his mama wanted?)  “You don’t get room to talk, you’re the gayest gayboi to ever saunter through Fort Bragg in Petunia Pink.  The Pooch _knows_ boobs and them are A’s.”  Pooch stares contemplatively at Cougar’s chest and the sniper resists the urge to fold his arms.  “I mean _maybe_ he could fake like really tight B’s if he had like a hell of a lot of water the night before.”

“Cougar’s a lady,” Jensen points out, apparently fully invested in this discussion.  “Not a dromedary.  The mechanics are totally different!”

 

* * *

 

 

They find out very quickly that what Clay’s got and what Cougar has isn’t likely to be the same thing.  Hot water doesn’t do a thing except scald him.  There is a moment when he thinks ‘my life is over’, and another where he thinks ‘… actually this isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me’.  It doesn’t hurt that every one of his sisters would beat the shit out of him for the former thought.  The team waits for his reaction and as a unit relaxes when he shrugs and demands a body pillow because _fuck_ sleeping on his back.

 

* * *

 

 

“I get it,” Clay tells him, woman to woman, and breaks out the good scotch.  “It’s your body and someone’s changed it and didn’t bother to get your opinion.”  It’s the most ham-handed metaphor in the world but honestly Cougar can’t draw up any indignation.  He’s had ten hours to get used to this, and besides the fact that his right breast is a nasty shade of purple where recoil slammed the butt of his rifle into his chest, he thinks he’s finally got the hang of it.  Also while chocolate was great before, now Cougar’s pretty sure he’d cut anyone who touched his stash.

“It bother you?” he asked because it was polite.  The smile he gets says ‘not as much as you would think’.  The smile is predatory and Cougar is a little teeny fish in a big big pond and apparently having _legs_ of your own doesn’t preclude you from noticing _legs_ on someone else.  Legs that Clay crosses and that _pendejo_ must know what that’s doing to Cougar.

Clay laughs.

“Finish your drink Sergeant.”

Cougar drains his glass, tips his hat, and walks very, very quickly away.

 

* * *

 

 

“Wanna fuck?”  Roque’s outline is a solid shadow against the dark roof.  He’s not at all intimidated by Cougar’s perfectly sarcastic eyebrow.  “I hear it’s real good like this.  Better even.”  And no prizes for where that tidbit came from.  Cougar rolls his shoulders and turns dark, huge eyes to Roque’s appraisingly. 

“Prove it.”

The scarred man grins and settles hands on Cougar’s waist.

 

* * *

 

 

_“I’m not saying that.”_

_“Come on Cougs it’s for science.”_

_“No.”_

_“Cougs-”_

_“ No!”_

_“It’s just a – come back here.”_

_“Fuck you!”_

_“Okay fine, how about ‘Moon Prism Power!’ then?”_

_“ Fuck you!”_

Later, to Cougar’s great chagrin, it he discovers that his transformation _is_ actually triggered by a password.  He never tells anyone what it is.


	3. Batting for Team Pooch

Pooch is next, which surprises everyone.  He takes it badly, which surprises no one.  The Losers escape most of the fall-out by virtue of being nowhere nearby, which… well, it’s just the way the dice fell, isn’t it?  It goes like this:

 

Pooch requests leave.  All the leave, his whole bank of it plus the couple of  extra weeks that quietly appeared on his balance right after that one time he walked in on Jensen hacking the DFAS site and had kept his mouth shut.  “Sir,” he says and stands at uncomfortably stiff attention.  He’s wearing all new clothes, has a rental car idling with its windows rolled up and has taken nothing but his gun and his tags from the house.  Both of which have been savagely disinfected.  He doesn’t risk anything else: minimal exposure is his battlecry.

 

“This is a new level of batshit, alright?  Even for us.” 

 

Clay nods and tucks a wisp of salt-n-pepper locks behind his ear, secretly enjoying Pooch’s discomfort a little bit.  Only a little though.

 

“That’s understandable.”

 

Pooch shifts.  “I dunno what we’re gonna do long term, Colonel,” he admits.  “But I gotta go.  I just… clear my head a little, yeah?”

 

“We’ll call you if anything,” or any _one_ , “changes,” Clay promises, and Jensen has procured a large white hanky from somewhere and is in the process of sadly fluttering it in farewell.  Pooch leaves, and pretends speed limits are a suggestion.

 

He also swaps rental cars three times before heading home.

 

* * *

 

 

“There’s a situation,” Joleen says with the kind of level calm that Roque’s heard from EOD specialists right before a call to clear an area of civilians.   He holds his breath for a four-count before letting it out with a whoosh.

 

“Any chance you’re bisexual, Mz Porteous,” he asks and that’s as much as he’s willing to say on an unsecure line.  The silence that answers him tells him quite a bit.

 

“We’ll be there in 10 hours.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m not angry,” Jolene says in the tone of voice that says yes I actually am quite a bit.  Pooch attempts to make himself as small as possible while refusing to bring his arms anywhere near his brand new boobs.  “I knew _something_ was wrong.  Sudden leave and an impromptu vacation to NYC that we have to leave _now_ to catch our reservations, and we have to take a rental car and buy all new clothes?”  She pats Pooch’s closest knee.  He looks good in her clothes.  “Let’s just say it was less than subtle.”

 

“But you weren’t expecting sudden sexification,” Jensen pipes up.  “It’s okay, nobody expects the sudden sexification.”

 

Cougar wanders in then, female, in a tank top and shorts and completely unashamed.  It’s _hot_ and he’s miserable and the air conditioning doesn’t work, what do you expect?  He tips his hat in greeting and then wanders off to find a beer.  Pooch's new assets don't even warrant a second glance.

 

Jolene watches him go.

 

“… So I’ll just assume this is a thing now.”

 

* * *

 

 

In a textbook demonstration of the Universe saying ‘fuck this guy in particular’, eleven hours into the Porteous Family Impromptu Vacation a wild-haired, wilder-eyed woman bites Pooch in the NY Penn Station.  Security is on them immediately, dragging the beast-woman off Pooch and keeping Jolene from beating the beast-woman to death.  There is a lot of yelling and more blood than there really should be.  There are paramedics and an ambulance and shots for everything from tetanus to rabies.  There is gauze and medical tape, pain killers and antibiotics, and strict instructions to report anything strange to his primary care physician.

 

The full moon rises, Pooch becomes Poochella and they don’t, actually, report it to his primary care physician.

 

* * *

 

 

Roque manages a politely calm face.  “In summary.  You were bitten by a were-woman.”

 

“I hate you all.”  Pooch whimpers.  He folds his arms, then screeches and drops them like his nipples are scalding.

 

* * *

 

 

Apparently Jolene is Pooch-sexual.  This is good for all parties.  Pooch is too distracted to murder them.


	4. Roque falls next.  Mind your viscera.

“Okay so –no wait hear me out!”

 

Pooch waves an ‘I’m listening’ and Roque sharpens a bowie in a clear ‘I can’t decide whether to gut you first or skin you’.  Jensen is undeterred.

 

“Okay so The Poochella has that ‘yeah, I skipped out on my residency to run with The Doctor’ kinda face and Lady Clay… I mean Lady Clay is what happens when Samus Aran and Commander Shepard make beast with two backs and their lovechild in turn makes sweet, sweet music with the offspring of Janeway and Picard, you feel me?”

 

Pooch nods, though whether it’s because he approves of the choice of Agyeman for himself or agrees that Clay’s authority-kinky strict-hot must have been a result of at least two generations of selective breeding is anyone’s guess.

 

“And Cougarita!  Rocking the whole ‘Vicky, Christina, Barcelona’ crazy mamacita vibe, no?”

 

Pooch’s brow wrinkles.  “Didn’t Penelope Cruz fuck a guy who looked a hell of a lot like the Colonel in that one?” he asks.

 

“Yes,” Jensen intones.  “Yes she did.  She also screamed like an angry warthog and threw heavy metal objects at his head.”  Several sets of considering eyes turned to Clay, who looks mildly disgruntled.

 

“Sounds about right,” Roque snorts.  He rolls his (…her?  Man, pronouns are _hard_!) eyes.  It’s a much better look on him these days.

 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Jensen continues.  “My point-“

 

“You had one?”

 

“Don’t be mean to me, Colonel.  I’ve seen your web traffic.  Ctrl-Shift-N only actually keeps it from being recorded on your own laptop, all I’m saying.”

 

“That a threat, Corporal?”

 

“ _Any.  Way_.”  Jensen scoots just out of Clay’s reach and angles himself so Cougar is between them.  He isn’t ashamed of that move in the slightest.  “I was building up a comparison here.  Roque.  My man.  All I can think of when I look at you is ‘there’s a lady who, any minute now, is gonna haul out a club and start yelling ‘bout snu snu’.”

 

Roque calmly checks the edge of his knife.  “Clay,” he croons throatily.  “You’re about to be short one tech.”

 

* * *

 

Roque wakes up to hard earth below him, red sky above him and smoke filling everything in between.  It’s a step up from what he had been expecting.

 

 _‘Still here then?’_ he calls mentally.

 

 _‘Still here_ ,’She, Marinette, she of the first spilled blood, of desperation and battlefields, sings back and well.  Alright then.  _‘I have made changes.  We are better.’_

 

‘We’ are female, and Roque isn’t even a little surprised.  _‘ We are gonna talk about this later.’_

 

 _‘Later,’_ She agrees.  _‘Now we fight.’_

 

Roque slips a knife in either hand and a grin of maniacal abandon on his face.  _‘Now we go find the fuckers that took the Pack.’_

 

* * *

 

“It’s actually ‘cackle’,” Clay corrects, adjusting his glasses.  No one, but _no one_ for a moment is fooled into thinking that he suddenly needs reading glasses or that he’s doing it for any reason other than to flaunt the hot school marm/librarian look.  “A group of hyenas,” he clarifies at Roque’s ‘WTF?’ look.  “Is called a ‘cackle’.”

 

“Why the fuck would you even know that?”

 

“I’m an officer and a gentleman, Roque.  I’m the very model of a modern Lieutenant Colonel.”

 

* * *

 

  

“I draw the line at sniffing my ass.”  Pooch appears in the doorway, arms folded, chin squared.  “Absolute line in the sand filled with concrete and lined with pressure-mines.  No ass-sniffing.  And _definitely_ no leg humping.”

 

Roque sighs.  “That’s dogs.  She’s a hyena.”

 

“Glad we have an understanding.  The Pooch is a one-woman… changeling.”

 

“Don’t flatter yourself, your legs aren’t all that.”

 

“Fuck you the Pooch’s legs are prime.”

 

* * *

 

Roque wakes up the morning _after_ with:

-          a voodoo Loa of War riding shotgun in his head

-          his spine feeling like he spent a week on a rack

-          a massive itch between his shoulder blades

-          blood under his fingertips

-          teammates that are, against all odds, _alive_

-          enemies that are quite dead and apparently dispatched with great dual enthusiasm by both the current residents of Roque’s body, and

-          Cougar making kissing-whistling sounds and dangling a slab of raw bacon under his nose.

 

Roque glares.  Cougar grins, wiggles the bacon and makes more kissing sounds.

 

Marinette uncurls from the back of Roque’s brain and whuffs excitedly at the meat. 

 

“I will gut you,” Roque growls around a mouthful of delicious, juicy bacon.  “And nap in your warm entrails.”

 

Cougar's grins widens.

 

* * *

 

Jensen stares at his SiC, then shakes his head sadly and shuffles away.  “ _Cats_ , man.  It’s always _cats._ ”


End file.
